Dark Souls II Hi-Fidelity Screenshots Removed From Steam

It looks like the Steam version of Dark Souls II will share graphical parity with the console versions.

Dark Souls II is a great game, but, it's not quite as... shiny as we expected it to be. Earlier, From Software confirmed that the console version of the game suffered a graphical downgrade in the pursuit of a stable framerate, but seemed to imply that the PC version would be untouched. But now, our hopes have been dashed, as the higher-fidelity screenshots from the pre-release builds of Dark Souls II have been replaced on the game's Steam page with images more akin to how the game looks on consoles.

Reportedly, the retail console version of Dark Souls II featured the same outdated screenshots on the back of the box, suggesting the last-minute nature of the changes. Earlier, a Forbes source was quoted as saying "I strongly suspect that they were focusing heavily on delivering a top-notch experience on PC and underestimated the challenges the new systems would pose on PS3 / Xbox360."

The build of the game shown at E3 2013 featured a lot of additional graphical features, such as a lighting system that seemed to plunge the world of Drangleic into deep darkness, traversable only with the help of a trusty torch. Sadly, it looks like we will never be able to experience this version of the game (until, of course, PC modders start getting busy).

Dark Souls 2 will be released for PC on 25 April, and while it may have graphical parity with the console versions, it will support a much higher range of resolutions, all the way up to 4k.